OFFICER CANDIDATES
President
Nancy Shute (freelance)
I'm a freelance editor and writer, as well as a contributing editor for U.S. News & World Report, where I worked for 12 years as a senior writer and assistant managing editor in charge of science and technology coverage. In my latest metamorphosis, I'm now blogging, podcasting, and training journalists and scientists in effective use of social media, while trying to figure all this out myself. I've worked as a small-town newspaper and television reporter in Idaho, a political reporter in Washington, D.C., and a freelance contributor to many newspapers and magazines, including Outside, Health, The New York Times Magazine, and Smithsonian. In the early 1990s, on a Fulbright, I founded the first bilingual newspaper in Kamchatka, Russia.
In the next two years, I plan to continue our work developing programs and services that will help NASW members adapt and thrive in a fast-changing media landscape. That includes a first-ever strategic plan for NASW, which will help the organization assess the needs of our members and respond efficiently and effectively. I'm also looking forward to working to improve the quality of science writing worldwide, as part of NASW's sponsorship of the World Conference of Science Journalists in June 2011. Most important, I want to continue to nurture our community of science writers so we can help each other build bright futures for ourselves and our craft.
Vice President
Peggy Girshman (Kaiser Health News)
As the executive editor of Online of Kaiser Health News, I am part of a new wave of (deliberately) nonprofit journalistic ventures. We are an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. We cover health policy, comparative effectiveness research, health care financing, hospitals, doctors, nurses, etc. I oversee the website and also work on partnerships; our material appears in a variety of places including The Washington Post, NPR, Philadelphia Inquirer, and McClatchy Newspapers, to name a few.
Prior to this, I was executive editor of consumer publishing for Congressional Quarterly. Some of our stories covered environment, technology, health care, and science policy. The first 32 years of my career were spent in broadcasting. I was a managing editor at NPR News, coordinated the radio newsroom expansion into multimedia for npr.org, helped initiate the year-long "Climate Connections" series, and oversaw the science desk.
Among other jobs in my eclectic career: stints as medical/science producer for the CBS-TV affiliate in Washington, D.C., deputy senior science editor at NPR, a producer for "Innovation," and a senior producer for "Against All Odds: Inside Statistics," "Scientific American Frontiers," and "Discover: The World of Science," all PBS science programs. In the late 1990's, I was senior medical producer for Dateline NBC.
I was an MBL fellow in 1987 and a Knight Fellow at MIT in 1991. I previously served one term on the NASW board and am currently NASW treasurer.
Treasurer
Ron Winslow (Wall Street Journal)
I have enjoyed the past two years as NASW secretary working with other officers and board members to improve communications with the membership and to bolster efforts to expand workshops, fellowships, and other programs for the benefit of science writers. As treasurer, I will continue to work with NASW leadership to foster a community of science writers and support members as we all seek to serve our respective audiences amid the economic and social forces buffeting our profession.
I have been a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal for 27 years, the last 20 covering health and medicine. When I joined NASW in 1990, my beat focused on health policy. Medical science is now my beat.
Secretary
Beryl Lieff Benderly (freelance)
Since 2002, when NASW joined Authors Coalition of America through my efforts, coalition funds have funded such services as the Words' Worth database, travel fellowships, and enhanced content for the workshops, newsletter and website. This year, as co-chair of NASW's new career development grants, I helped launch a program that has already let dozens of science writers undertake projects to adapt their careers to today's turbulent conditions. I hope that, with future coalition funds, NASW can provide that chance to many more. That's why, as NASW's coalition liaison, I work to maximize this income by representing NASW at regular meetings and serving on the coalition's distribution committee. Within NASW, I have also served on the board and the freelance committee and have co-chaired the Science-in-Society Awards. NASW honored my service with the McGurgan Award, and I was recently thrilled to be elected a Fellow of AAAS for "leadership in advancing and protecting the economic and creative rights" of science writers. With seven national writing prizes, eight books, hundreds of articles, and a monthly column on Science magazine's website, I hope, as NASW secretary, to continue working to make NASW the most vigorous possible source of the information, education, support and advocacy that all our members need to thrive in these challenging times.
Member-at-Large Candidates
Karl Leif Bates (Duke University Research Communications)
We're in the midst of a sort of Cambrian explosion of new forms of media and interpersonal communication that I find really exciting. The core of what we do — call it the metabolism of science news — won't change. But the environment we find ourselves in already has. It's time for a little adaptation, and I think NASW should be central to that effort.
I'm optimistic that there is as much (or more) audience for science news now as ever, and that there will be many ways to make a living using our rare and precious skills to create that content. The NASW should be where we meet — online and in person — to share new ideas and teach each other as we grope our way forward. I'd like to see our little club continue to attract and nurture the best young talent and to work together to learn all sorts of great new ways to bring science to the public — and get paid for it!
I've served on the program committee for the NASW workshops for the last two years, and am on advisory boards for EurekAlert!, the University of North Carolina Medical & Science Journalism Program, and SCONC (Science Communicators of North Carolina).
Terry Devitt (University of Wisconsin-Madison/The Why Files)
I seek re-election to the board as I hope to continue to serve the diverse membership of our organization. Given the profound changes in our work world, NASW plays a more important role than ever. It is essential for our organization to increase opportunities for professional development and to enhance services to our membership. If re-elected, I will also continue to advocate for all of our members and the opportunity to contribute to the organization and its goals. As co-chair of the Internet committee and a long-time member of the education committee, I will act in strong support of these critical services for our members and for future science writers.
I am director of research communications for the University of Wisconsin, where I've covered science for 25 years. I also edit The Why Files, a popular website about science. In addition, I freelance and have contributed to such publications as Astronomy, Orion, the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, the Milwaukee Journal, the American Heart Association, the Bulletin of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the children's science magazine Muse. I'm a recipient of the 2001 Science Journalism Award from AAAS and the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for In-depth Reporting. In 2007, I was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Dan Ferber (freelance)
Communicating science is as important as it ever was, despite changes in our business that have made the life of a science writer more challenging. If re-elected to the board, I'll continue to strive to help science writers thrive in our rapidly changing profession. I'll work to help NASW enhance our excellent member services and professional development programs. And, in keeping with our constitution, I'll advocate for NASW to be a strong voice that promotes accurate communication about science and technology.
I'm a long-time independent science journalist, a contributing correspondent for Science, and a freelance magazine writer. My work has garnered several awards from journalism groups, and was anthologized in the Best of Technology Writing 2006. I've recently completed work on my first book, a co-authored work on the health impacts of climate change, and as a board member will draw from that experience to voice the concerns of authors and aspiring authors within NASW.
As chair of the NASW freelance committee, I spearheaded several important initiatives to benefit every member who freelances, including Words' Worth, NASW's online database of freelance rates and contracts information. I also co-founded and chair NASW's grievance committee, which since 2006 has been helping members collect overdue fees and resolve other grievances with publishers. These efforts and others earned me the 2007 Diane McGurgan Service Award.
Bob Finn (International Medical News Group)
As a three-term board member my main focus has been NASW's Science in Society Awards. Each year I've worked hard to assemble a stellar list of judges and I have shepherded about 1,000 entries through the process. In 2008, I led an effort to re-examine the SIS awards. After productive discussions among board members and others, we decided to increase the number of categories to four, to make all of them (except for the book category) platform independent, and to add categories honoring commentary and opinion and local and regional science reporting. I think the new categories are working well, but I'm open to discussing future changes. I also hope to find a way outside the SIS structure to honor outstanding work from NASW members who work in public information. As a former PIO (Caltech), freelancer, and current staff journalist, I believe I can represent three of NASW's main constituencies on matters relating to the awards and also to the many other issues requiring board discussion.
Deborah Franklin (freelance)
I'm a freelance science writer in San Francisco and have covered science and medicine in perhaps every medium but television. I started out in magazines, first interning at Science News, then working as a staff reporter and/or editor at Science News, Science '86, Hippocrates, Health, and Fortune magazines. In 2005 and 2006, I was one of two writers of the New York Times' personal health column, "The Consumer." I've freelanced feature stories for numerous magazines, including the New York Times Magazine, Discover, and Smithsonian. Since 2006, I've spent at least half of every year working for National Public Radio in Washington, D.C., as a radio correspondent, editor, and blogger on NPR's Science Desk. I look forward to working with NASW board and committee members to strengthen the ties and sharing of skills and perspective between new and long-time science writers across media and from coast to coast.
Jeff Grabmeier (Ohio State University)
In order to continue as a successful organization, NASW has to attract new, young science writers in a challenging media environment. That's one of the main reasons I am running for the board, and why I have been co-chair of the education committee since 2004. As co-chair, I helped develop a travel stipend program that has allowed 10 top science-writing students to attend the AAAS meeting each year with their expenses paid. I have also helped manage the ever-growing mentorship program and internship fair at the AAAS meeting. In addition, I spent five years as editor of the "Our Gang" column in ScienceWriters.
I hope to bring to the board a perspective from all sides of science writing. I am currently director of research communications at Ohio State University, and write extensively about social science research. But I have also done freelance writing for consumer and college magazines and have written chapters for several books, including Soul of the Sky. I started my career as a newspaper reporter.
Michael Lemonick (Climate Central)
I'll hardly be the only candidate to comment on how quickly science writing is changing, and how little anyone really knows about where it's headed. I'm convinced, however, that science writing will thrive, and that experienced science journalists have an obligation to help the profession navigate the transition.
My career has pretty much spanned the golden age of science journalism. I began writing for Science Digest in 1983, and then spent 21 years on the staff of TIME. I've also done a lot of freelance work and written four books. In 1998, I began teaching science journalism, mostly to undergraduates at Princeton, but also a handful of graduate and professional courses at Columbia, NYU, Johns Hopkins, and the Santa Fe Science Writing Workshop.
Now, after taking a package in 2007, I'm on the staff of Climate Central, in Princeton, N.J., a nonprofit-journalism organization that's exploring one possible direction science writing could follow. Will it work? Nobody really knows, but we have to try everything we can think of.
So I have one foot in the glorious past and the other planted firmly in the slippery future. I have experience as a freelancer, a staff journalist, and a staff . . . whatever you call it now, since nonprofit journalism is an entirely new category. I've done plenty of blogging, and am now exploring radio and short video. I also, crucially, have ongoing contact with many of the young science writers who are the ones who are actively reinventing the profession. As a result I think I'm reasonably well positioned to help guide science writers — including myself — through the transition without losing the professional values we've already established.
David Levine (freelance)
If elected to the board, I will bring the same energy and enthusiasm that I bring to my role as co-president of Science Writers in New York (SWINY).
I write about health and medicine. I have done so as a freelance writer and as a PIO for the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association. I received my B.A. in humanities and M.A. in creative writing, both from The Johns Hopkins University.
These are challenging times for science writers. I believe that there is strength in numbers and reputation. To retain our current members, and recruit new members, NASW must offer programs and services that are relevant to members' needs. I am glad the organization has increased its communications to member and offers career development grants. This is the right direction to go.
Although a relatively new member of NASW, I attended the regional meeting in New York City and the annual meeting in Austin. As part of the ad hoc committee that is reviewing and revising proposed changes to Article VIII of the NASW Constitution, I have been thanked for bringing a "rational and fair voice" to the group. I will do the same as a member of the NASW Board.
Robin Lloyd (Scientific American)
I am a former NASW lurker who now enjoys and benefits from getting involved and helping out. I often focus on collaborating with NASW members to address the changing business climate for science journalism and to develop ways that contributors to both old and new media can evolve and thrive. On the NASW board, I also hope to assist in the development of best practices for new media and the representation of online journalism issues.
I have been a member of NASW for 11 years. For the past two years, I've been a member of the program committee and a Science in Society Awards judge. As a member of Science Writers in New York, I have helped to organize events on the future of social media and on ethics in science and health journalism. I also serve on the university communications council at the Stevens Institute of Technology. I have worked full time in print journalism (Pasadena Star-News), online journalism (ScientificAmerican.com, CNN.com, Space.com, and LiveScience.com), and wire journalism (City News Service of Los Angeles), and also held jobs in academia (assistant professor of sociology at SUNY Purchase), and institutional communications (American Museum of Natural History).
Rosie Mestel (Los Angeles Times)
I started out with a Ph.D. in genetics and worked as a post-doc in a fruit-fly lab before deciding to switch to science writing. After completing the UC Santa Cruz science-writing program, I interned at the Dallas Morning News, then worked as a researcher/reporter for Discover magazine. After that, I embarked on a semi-freelancing career (West Coast correspondent for New Scientist and a contributing editor for Health magazine, while writing articles for Natural History, Discover, Earth and Science). I joined the L.A. Times as a staff writer in 1998, writing first for the health section and then reporting on science and medicine for the news section. I've been deputy editor for health and science for five years.
As someone who's freelanced, I know how hard that work can be, and try very hard to make the experience of people who write for my newspaper as decent as possible. And as someone who's watched staff levels dwindle year after year at the L.A. Times, even as demands to expand and change our coverage intensify, I have had a good taste of the challenges we face in our line of work.
During my career, I've received much support from colleagues and mentors in the science-writing community. I seek election to the NASW board as a way to contribute time and energy to our community in a more formal way.
Steve Miller (freelance)
I do not classify myself as a journalist, PIO, editor, or book author although my work encompasses each of these categories. I am, however, a science writer dedicated to accurate science communication in many venues. As a freelance science writer and member of NASW since 1999, I have seen my work balance shift many times. I believe this will be typical in the future of science writing, for staff as well as freelance writers.
A primary goal of NASW should be to help members in the transition from clearly defined and focused job titles to the broad field that encompasses today's science writing, broadcasting, and webcasting. As a board member, I will focus on that goal along with NASW's traditional strengths of promoting accurate science communication, advocating for science writers, and sharing both our collective knowledge of the trade and the occasional pitcher of beer.
I have been active on the NASW education and freelance committees as well as organizing and serving on workshop panels on the business of freelancing and on writing for children. Unrelated to science writing, I have developed organizational leadership skills as a municipal elected official and as a board member of a local nature conservancy.
Tabitha M. Powledge (freelance)
Radical changes in markets for science writers dominate our work lives, especially the rise of web-based publications. In the eight years I have been a board member, NASW has become more activist and concerned about professional and business issues like electronic rights and contracts. We have expanded services for our growing freelance membership, making essential electronic communications more reliable and useful, helping resolve grievances and payment problems with clients, and worrying more about the business of science writing. For seven years I wrote about such changes in the ScienceWriters column "The Free Lance," and I am also a long-time member of the freelance and Internet committees.
I was founding editor of The Scientist and an editor at what is now Nature Biotechnology. A full-time freelance since 1990, I have written for paper publications that include Scientific American, Popular Science, Health magazine, PLoS Biology, The Scientist, Washington Post, BioScience, and The Lancet. My book The Complete Idiot's Guide to Microbiology came out in 2007, and I am working far too slowly on a second edition of my 1994 book Your Brain: How You Got It and How It Works. I do freelance editing, too. Like many freelances, I write increasingly for web publications that have included SciAm, The Scientist, Salon.com, and the late HMS Beagle/BioMedNet.com. I'm a regular contributor to the technology blog Popgadget.net.
Adam Rogers (Wired)
As an assigning editor at a magazine that focuses on science and technology, I've been lucky enough (in general) to have the resources required for really ambitious stories. The question is: are we as science writers producing stories that magazines like mine want to pay for?
My priority, if elected to the NASW board, will be to expand what writers can do. We need to build our social networking presence, to better exchange ideas and collaborate. We should share knowledge about publications and editors — word rates, editorial contacts, and what publications look for in a science story. And we should expand training in the use of multimedia tools as more publications (like mine) incorporate audio and video.
All of us should be working to redefine what science writers cover and how we cover it. Textured stories with narrative and context pay better, but more importantly they're what we have to deliver if we want readers to really understand health care reform, energy policy, and all the other major stories in our portfolio.
M. Mitchell Waldrop (Nature)
I am running for the NASW board for two reasons. First, I can represent the interests of virtually every member in the organization from first-hand experience. In my 30-plus years as a science writer I have been a reporter facing weekly deadlines (Chemical & Engineering News and Science), a freelance magazine journalist (Scientific American, Technology Review, and elsewhere), a book author (Man-Made Minds, Complexity, and The Dream Machine), a public-affairs officer (at the National Science Foundation), a blogger, an editor (Nature), and even a purveyor of editorial opinion (also at Nature.)
Second, as we all live through journalism's tumultuous transition to the web era, I think NASW needs to take the lead in providing its members with information, training, discussion forums, and mechanisms for sharing best practices. No one can claim to be an expert in this subject; it's changing too fast. But I have the good fortune to work for Nature Publishing Group, which has been among the most innovative publishers out there at finding new ways to take advantage of the web. I hope to use that experience and those contacts to NASW's advantage.
Cheryl Platzman Weinstock (freelance)
I set up my own freelance journalism business back in 1984, before it was fashionable to hang out your own shingle. I immediately became active in NASW and hit the ground running. I helped plan NASW's 50th anniversary, spearheaded informal chats about freelance writing at meetings and in the newsletter, and joined the board. Then, I counted on the backbone of NASW's elite to guide me and promised I would, in turn, mentor others. My phone is and always has been open to anyone with questions or concerns about freelance writing. As a board member, once again I would be uniquely qualified to spearhead NASW into helping shape the future of freelance writing because I have survived being one for 26 years. I write for such flagship publications as the New York Times, Glamour, and Woman's Day and have garnered 17 awards in my career. I know about what it takes to help run an organization from my years on NASW's board and my recent tenure on the board of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. The future is not as glum for writers as everyone thinks. It is all about staying on top of our game and I hope to help our board strategize what else can do to help our members move to the next step of their career.
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